I just wanted to share this article/video with those of you interested in mini drones:<br><br><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/flying-robots-nano-quadrotor-drones-swarm_n_1249442.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/flying-robots-nano-quadrotor-drones-swarm_n_1249442.html</a><br>

<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">Ahoy all- Ive been working an Occucopter project with Tim Pool, a journalist in NYC. We have been hacking about with an live streaming (ustream) AR-Parrot, which has been ok... wifi link sucks, even with a nice omni-antenna fixed on the drone, when it looses connectivity it just lands below its current location, automatically wherever that may be (on peoples heads, a body of water, whatever). So instead what about using a 3g android phone to control the drone and send video over 4g by adding 1 android phones on the drone. Possibly use Armino <a href="http://www.amarino-toolkit.net/" target="_blank">http://www.amarino-toolkit.net/</a><div>

<div><div><br></div><div>Maybe to solve the short-crap-flight-time problem, it could come back to base, drop a battery pack and pick a new one up. cool.<br><div><br></div><div>object/person tracking will be amazingly useful with reporter drones. Toss the copter up and it follows you like a shadow. yes, tough in a crowd unless it was tracking some kind of bright hat or pattern on said hat. So you didnt have to deal with flying it, just toss it up and let it track you with a ceiling and floor height set. If it looses you it can just stay at the last point until it needs recharge or re-aquires the target or go to a waypoint or raise to max ceiling height and try to acquire target. <a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/CS4758/2011sp/final_projects/spring_2011/Gemici_Zhuang.pdf" target="_blank">www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/CS4758/2011sp/final_projects/spring_2011/Gemici_Zhuang.pdf</a></div>

<div class="im"><p>Solution 1: Put the tethers in obnoxious, high and/or mildly unsettling places.</p><p>Also, with Mylar expect the man to complain that it will come loose and fry on a powerline. By fry, I mean short circuit.</p>